Fire
by mute90
Summary: XMen xover. On the night of Jess' death, a mutant social worker thinks about Sam Winchester.


Disclaimer: Supernatural and X-Men are not mine.

Summary: X-Men xover. On the night of Jess' death, a mutant counselor thinks about Sam Winchester.

A/N: This story is part of the X verse, which includes **Protest** and **Jail Riot**. Niether of those is needed to understand this one.

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Signeye is not a fighter. You could even go as far as to call him a pacifist. He talks things out. He follows the rules to the letter. However, when he sees the smoke, his foot comes down hard on the gas and speed limits be damned. 

_"Call me Signeye."_

_The boy's voice is strong, probably belligerent when he chooses to be. "Sam Winchester." He doesn't even look twice at Signeye's eyes._

_Signeye watches him as they wait for their food. The boy is about eighteen and hyperaware. His eyes shift to whoever moves away from their original places, catalogs their movement, and places a mental bookmark on their new position. He examined every exit when he first came in. Signeye himself was measured up in a glance._

_"This is good food. Do you come here often?" Signeye asked, trying to draw Sam out of the thick walls he seems to have up on every side._

_"No, I just got into town."_

_"Well, welcome, then. Where are you from?"_

_The boy's eyes shift irritably. He probably wants to say 'screw off'. He's polite, though. "Kansas. What about you?"_

_It's an obvious diversionary tactic but Signeye lets him get away with that. He tells him he's been here his whole life. He talks about odd childhood memories and monumental places. He sits down at Sam's table with his food. Sam's tense and you know he just wants you to go away. You try harder._

_"Are you visiting family or something?" He wants to take back the question as soon as he asks. Sam's eyes harden, like he's examining something he wants to beat down with a stick._

_"No."_

_"So, you just decided to go off on your own?"_

_"I got kicked out actually and I think you've hit your limit of twenty questions." That was definitely a 'screw off'._

Signeye almost swerved off the road two blocks down from their apartment. The pain, anger, and darkness hit him hard. The two former were Sam's. He recognized them.

_Signeye wrote off a lot of Sam's anger and irritability to having a chip on his shoulder. He was a social worker. He dealt with a lot of chips on both human and mutant shoulders. He thought Sam was a by-the-book case. He thought he had his measure._

_He was wrong._

_The guy pushing Sam around was a local bully. He was eighteen but not Sam's lanky eighteen. The guy was huge._

_Sam let him get away with a good amount of pushing. It was the name 'Sammy' that pushed him over the edge._

_When Sam hit, he didn't stop hitting until the guy was no longer in the shape to get back up._

_The others in the office were shaken by what they saw. Signeye was on his knees. He saw much more than they did. Anger shown clearly off bruises and pain was held tightly in a fist. There was so much more there that only he could see. Sam was alone, trying so hard to hang onto his sanity that he was losing it._

Signeye didn't trust himself behind the wheel of a car when his sight was acting up. He abandoned it on the side of the road and took off running. He been around here enough to know the route by heart.

_"What do you think?"_

_Signeye couldn't have picked anyone better for Sam than Jessica. Testy and hard-headed Jessica knew how to claw her way past Sam's walls, even using a sledgehammer at times._

_"It looks great," said Signeye, taking in their new apartment. The word for it would probably be 'quaint'. Jessica is still running around straightening the pictures and the cushions on the couch. Sam walks behind her and messes them up. She throws a cushion at him when she finally notices._

_"Sam didn't want to help."_

_Sam snorted. "I made suggestions and she said no."_

_"I don't care how superstitious you are, Sam. I'm not putting more than one crucifix in our bathroom. I'm already dealing with the salt on the carpet."_

_"It's supposed to repel ghosts."_

_"Yeah, well, the Ghostbusters aren't going to be the ones losing the deposit if it messes up that carpet. Signeye, tell him!"_

_It's Signeye's job to use the logic. "We respect your beliefs, Sam, but I think Jess feels too many crucifixes will make this like a scary movie."_

_"Excorcist," Jessica added._

_Sam sighs. "Fine, but we're keeping the salt."_

_"Good, I was getting tired of taking down those crucifixes whenever you left the room." Jessica picked up the abandoned cushion from the floor._

_Sam laughed. "It's bad luck to take down crucifixes."_

_"It's better than my other idea of turning them upside down." When she see Sam's face, she hurriedly adds, "I'm kidding. That would be an insult to God and I wouldn't want to be struck by lightening or anything."_

That 'quaint' little apartment is gone. Signeye is close enough to see that now. It went up in flames with those straight cushions, pictures, crucifixes, and salt. The question is, did someone go down with them. He's almost sure he knows the answer.

_"Jess made me promise I'd talk to you Sam. She's worried."_

_Sam refuses to look at him. His eyes are fixed at some point on the table and he fiddles with the cards in his hand. "It's nothing. Can we just finish the game?"_

_"Something's eating at you. I can see it."_

_Sam's eyes are hard as he finally looks up. "Well, maybe your readings are off with only one eye."_

_Signeye flinches. He had expected this. Sam had a sharp tongue. When he was backed into a corner, words flew from his mouth that he might not mean and would probably never say otherwise. It was his way._

_"I thought you were getting better."_

_Sam refuses to back down. He had gone to counseling and group meetings since he pounded the eighteen-year-old bully. The counselor's say he's a success, not spinning out of control as he had been doing when they first met. However, complete success can't be measured if you don't have all the facts. Sam only told them so much._

_"She woke you up from a nightmare and you almost hit her."_

_It's a harsh blow but Sam swallows it. "She surprised me." His eyes drop back to the table."They're just dreams. They can't be anything else, right?"_

_"What kind of dreams?"_

_Sam's eyes glaze over. "It starts when I feel something dripping on my forehead. I look up and it's Jess. She's on the ceiling. Her stomach – it's slit open and there's blood dripping down. She tries to say something to me. That's when the fire comes. It's all around her. I could smell her flesh burning and I can't get to her." He looked back up, his eyes now shining. "I have been having it for two weeks straight. It can't be anything but a dream though, right?"_

_Signeye considers that. He's not sure. "You could be having visions...or it could just be nightmare."_

_"How do I know the difference?"_

_Signeye finally smiles. "You check. There's a clinic downtown. You can take a test there to see if you're a mutant."_

There are people gathered outside, neighbors and friends. He approaches one of Jessica's friends for information. The girl is in tears. "Jess was in there. Sam's brother pulled him out but Jess was still in there." She buries her face in her boyfriend's shoulder.

_"The test came back negative."_

_"Good. That means it's just your ordinary nightmare."_

_"I guess."_

"Where's Sam?" he asks.

The boyfriend waves a hand in the general direction of the police. Signeye hurries over. A cop stops him before he could get closer but the voices of two others can still be heard.

"What about the boyfriend?"

"His brother took him to a motel. I told him to stick around until we were done with the questions."

"Is he a suspect?"

_"I'm still having the same dream, Signeye! She's on the ceiling and I can't get to her!"_

_"Calm down. It's just a dream. It'll stop if you stop obsessing. Just let it go."_

"Nah, there was an electrical shortage. The fire started in the ceiling.

"_...Just let it go."_

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Let me know what you think. Review. 


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